> A 33-year-old mother with two small kids is looking after her
> 55-year-old uncle with dementia, and comes home to find him
> jerking off in front of the kids

JT> My aunt died of dimentia related illness last week so I know
JT> how they handle things like these. My cousin was handling the
JT> situation and was suprised as to how much stuff-arsing with the
JT> coroner she had to go through. Apparently, anyone who dies, and
JT> happens to suffer from some type of dientia related illness,
JT> needs to go through a couple of days worth of paperwork shuffle
JT> to make sure no-one actually tried to kill them.

 That's not right! The coroner is only involved if the doctor refuses
to sign the death certificate. Wasn't she being treated by a GP?

 The other way you end up with no death certificate, is if you are
taken to Hospital Casualty, already dead or die on the way. It needs a
doctor to sign off, and without a signed death certificate an autopsy
is automatic, dementia or not.

JT> You see, with dimentia, you don't know if you're being fed the
JT> drugs you were prescribed, or week killer from the garden, you
JT> don't know if you've eaten, or being fed soap from the
JT> bathroom, you don't really know much of anything with any
JT> certainty. This is why you generally have guardians to take
JT> care of you and your matters.

 Did your aunt die at home, alone?

JT> It's like leaving a child to their own matters. If they happen
JT> to do something illegal, regardless if they knew what they were
JT> doing or not, ultimately, the parent/guardian is responsible.

 That's not true either. The parent/guardian has no repsonsibility at
all. If little Willy, or braindead Uncle Joe shoots the postman, they
don't arrest the parent or the carer. Someone with dementia who
commits a crime will be locked up in a psyche ward. The responsibility
of a carer is totally vague, under law.

 A "guardian" is a legal term specific to kids. If you foster a kid,
the kid is only on loan. If you become the kid's legal guardian, he's
as good as yours, short of actual adoption.

JT> In practice, someone has to get blamed. Conveniently, there is
JT> a law against killing people who have dimentia. This is a cut
JT> and dried case, it's all documented and there are no matters
JT> that are disputed. 

 It's called murder.

JT> The uncle is dead, so we can't blame him. If the uncle _didn't_
JT> die, the guardian would STILL be blamed, after all, why would
JT> you leave someone with dimentia to look after kids? Kinda like
JT> the blind leading the blind.

 My complaint is with the law, which is usually a mile out of touch
with the real world as most of us live it. The Law persists because
most of us never get caught in the wheels.

 If *I* came home to my braindead but usually harmless uncle and
caught him masturbating for my young kids, I'd do exactly what the
mother did and beat the living shit out of him. Actually, I'm not as
nice a person as the mother... I'd have dumped to old bastard long
since, and I'd like to think that when the cops arrived, I'd have my
lawyer waiting for them and say absolutely *NOTHING*; let them try to
make their case without evidence, and then tell a carefully-rehearsed
cock-and-bull story for the first time in court. 

 But that's not what *nice* people do. They try to explain
themselves, the cops write it all down and get it on video, and the
prosecutor picks the eyes out of it to put you away and get a wage
rise for being clever... while all you can afford is a dickhead
batrrister who tells you to plead guilty and trust the judge. So you
get ten years..

 I'd like someone to look at the *real* purpose of the Law.

 The law is upposed to protect the law-abiding. It has no other
puropiose. In that case, how is that mother any threat to society? Is
she going to kill another uncle with dementia? And yet, a bastard who
shoots a highway-patrol cop in cold blood only gets the minimum 25,
although he is a *serious* danger to society. He carries a gun and
shoots cops! For Christ's sake!  The mother gets 10 for doing what any
normal person would do, and the mad-dog killer gets 25.

Regards,
Bob

--- BQWK Alpha 0.5